


There Is No Death

by mars_morpheus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Come on, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Female Reader, Force-Sensitive Reader, I'm Sorry, Inquisitor Cal Kestis, Not a Jedi Though Really, Reader-Insert, The Overwhelming Sexual/Romantic Tension of Lightsaber Duels, Torture, What Do You Have to Lose, at least that's the plan, in the first chapter but nothing happens, jk jk... unless??, read it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:40:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25695952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mars_morpheus/pseuds/mars_morpheus
Summary: When you accidentally-on-purpose kill three men in an alley, you're already upset enough. After all, your lack of control over the Force can cause real problems, especially with Jedi being hunted down all over the galaxy. But you get a lot more scared once a certain Imperial Inquisitor, with hair as red as his lightsaber, gets involved.
Relationships: Cal Kestis/Original Female Character(s), Cal Kestis/Reader, Cal Kestis/You
Comments: 34
Kudos: 146





	1. Sparks Against the Railing

**Author's Note:**

> Surrender the Night by My Chemical Romance  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_kCpzMJ1Wo

You wake up screaming.

You should be used to nightmares by now, you chide yourself: you have them more often than not. Still, every time seems to be just as – well – nightmarish. It was one of the recurring dreams that you seem to cycle through.

_“Y/N, run – don’t let –” Blaster fire, breaking through the too-loud noise of your heartbeat, the too-slow pounding of your feet running away._

You shake your head as if to clear it. It won’t do to dwell on this sort of thing, not now. By this time tomorrow you’ll be on board a new ship, travelling to a new planet, and if you want to be paid you'll need to keep a clear head. You work as a navigator and translator on board starships. It makes credits, plus it keeps you moving. You're never on one planet for very long. Of course, that means that you never have any connections to anyone or anything – but, you remind yourself, that's good. It means that you're hard to catch.

Well, you aren’t going to get back to sleep now. You get out of the cheap motel-room bed you've rented for the night, deciding to get some fresh air. Maybe fresh is an overstatement, considering the city smog, but it's still cool, and it'll be good for you. The room is small and dark, with the lights off. It's in a seedy part of the city, near the edge: perfect for staying under the radar. It isn’t a bad room. Definitely better than lots of places you've stayed. You slide open the grimy window and jump softly down to the alley below.

The ground is wet; you have to hop over several puddles as you walk through the dark city. Less people are out than usual, due to the late hour. This is a nice planet. You like the weather. You're headed for a hot, sandy world next. Hopefully it will be a quick stay.

A quiet rustling comes from a pile of rubbish at the side of one of the streets you're walking along. Curious, you move closer. Something glitters at you from underneath a piece of fabric. When you pull it gently away, you find that the shiny thing is in fact several shiny things: the four eyes of a small mammal. You can’t say you recognise the species, but it is certainly cute. Its fur looks soft; you extend a hand toward the little creature’s head, sending calming energy toward it through your fingertips.

It _was_ soft. You pet it gently, while its Y-shaped tail twitches. You like little creatures like this – they aren’t so complicated. They can just live, and that's enough. A smile makes its way onto your face.

You’ve been out for a little while now, and you’d better return to your room. Even if you aren’t going to get any more sleep, you have things there that you didn’t want stolen - or found at all, really. For instance, your lightsaber. Dead giveaway if anyone pokes around looking for Jedi, even though technically you're not one. You stand up, giving the little creature a last pet before walking away. After maybe ten metres, there's a chirping sound from behind you. You turn to see the little creature, padding along with you on its soft paws. It can’t stay with you. It certainly seems as if it wants to, though – as you draw your eyebrows together, it brushes against your legs on its way to wind around them affectionately. You lean down and pick it up, walking it back to where it had been sleeping before.

“Stay,” you whisper, laying the little creature down and focusing on making it fall asleep. It does at last, and you go about returning to your room. It's lucky, you think to yourself, that you managed to just put the creature to sleep instead of going too far and killing it. That sort of thing has happened before.

You're just about to turn back into the alley beneath your window when you register the sounds of footsteps behind you. There are three people, you find, reaching back with the Force. They don’t have good intentions. Kriff, can’t you get a break?

“Hey,” says a voice from behind you. “What’s a cute little girl doing out at this hour?”

Well, that's just rude, not to mention that it makes you uncomfortable. You turn around, figuring that it's better to diffuse the situation now than to risk being followed back to your room. “Just walking,” you reply, hoping to avoid a confrontation.

“You’ll be walking funny tomorrow if I get my way.” The same guy speaks again. All of the three men seem to be human.

“No thanks,” you say, trying to hide your nervousness. The men are definitely drunk, and you don’t stand a chance in a fight, unarmed as you are.

“Aw, you don’t mean that,” says another of the three.

“N-no, I don’t want to have sex with you.” You aren’t really sure what the right course of action is for this kind of situation. It isn’t something you're used to. A Jedi mind trick would come in handy about now, but with your poor handle over the Force? Not going to happen.

“Like you know what you want!” The guy talking slurs his speech slightly.

You're becoming very uncomfortable indeed; the men are almost surrounding you with your back to the wall of one of the buildings forming the alley. “Please leave me alone.”

One of the men reaches out to grab you. You dodge out of his reach, heart speeding up. “Stop it!”

“Stay kriffin’ still!”

“No!” You manage to avoid their grabbing hands, but there's no way to escape the fight – not without risking losing all control, anyway. Already, you can feel dangerous emotion creeping toward the surface.

It's no good: the three of them manage to restrain you. Despite your kicking and struggling, two of them hold you by your arms, and the third is in front of you, cracking his knuckles menacingly. “It’s more fun when they fight, eh, boys?”

No, this isn’t happening! Hot rage and fear thrum frantically through your veins. You kick forward and connect with the kneecap of the man in front of you, earning a pained snarl.

He pulls back his fist to strike you. Your eyes widen, blood running hot-and-cold – and suddenly, his motion is stopped.

Everything is still for a moment, save for the confused shifting of the man’s eyes within his frozen mask of a face. Nothing matters to you except for the anger that has taken control of your mind. It builds higher and higher – your body starts to shake – and then the bodies of all three men are flying backward as if thrown by an invisible explosion. They hit the alley walls and crumple, lifeless, to the ground.

Your clarity comes back to you in a wave. Why are you smiling? You've just – oh stars, you've just killed three people. You could’ve escaped, or put them to sleep, but instead you lost it. Your hands tremble. Blood is seeping across the damp ground from the crushed bodies. You swallow a sob, and run.

Reaching the motel, you jump up to your window. You can’t stay here now – it isn’t safe. Kriff, why can’t you just keep yourself under control? No, no, it's fine. You're leaving tomorrow night. Sure, you lost it a little, but you'll deal with it. Tomorrow you'll wander around the city, blend in, and make it out.

There isn’t much to gather before you leave the motel room. Your small, black backpack contains a pouch full of credits, a few rolled-up items of clothing, and your silver-handled lightsaber, and once you've shrugged on your baggy silver jacket you're ready. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. Everything will be alright.

Now, if only you could make yourself believe that.

_In another part of the city, the Eleventh Brother’s spine prickles, bringing him back from the verge of sleep. It'_ _s the Force – somebody, nearby, has just let loose a lot of energy. He closes his eyes again, focusing. Whoever it is had been afraid, at first, then desperate, and finally angry. There's a note of guilt underneath the outburst, too, telling him that the person is predominately a Light Side user. A Jedi? Perhaps, but they're unstable, tipping constantly toward the Dark._

_The Eleventh Brother’s smile stretches slowly over his face. There is a Jedi very close, and if there's anything he's good at, it's hunting Jedi._


	2. No Turning Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thunderstruck by AC/DC (2CELLOS cover)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk

The sky grows dark early the next day. You've been walking the streets of the city all day, last night’s _incident_ still sticking in your mind. You need to stop thinking about it, just shove it down somewhere out of reach. The kriffing Force – what good is it? It isn’t like you can use it for anything without being caught. All it gets you is nightmares and pain and a life on the run.

On the plus side, you decided a while ago to treat yourself to a snack, which makes your walking more fun.

When you're out, you keep your lightsaber in the ‘secret’ inside pocket of your jacket. Its weight bumps against your left side with every step.

As the planet’s sun begins to set, you find that your feet have taken you back near the alley where you blew up last night. There's a strange feeling about the place now. You chalk it up to your unease, or maybe the rain that started coming down a while ago. It can’t hurt to look at it, right? It’d probably be good to put fresh eyes on the scene, brighten up your perspective. That makes sense. Trying to push away the bad feeling you have, you look around to make sure nobody is watching, then climb up to the roof of the motel (it's only two or three stories, so it isn’t hard, especially with a little help from the Force). It's strange, though, you have to admit: it almost feels as though somebody else is there with you. Some kind of Force thing, probably. You don’t think you’ll ever understand the stupid kriffing Force. You crouch near the edge of the roof, looking down.

There's somebody down there.

You tense, anxious, for a second. No, there's no reason to be scared, you tell yourself. After all, there _are_ dead people down there. Probably just a routine body cleanup. Although something about the shadowy figure standing in the alley makes your skin prickle. What is he wearing? You squint, focusing your eyes and energy on him. All black: it looks like armour. It looks almost like – no, that's ridiculous.

But you're proven wrong when he shifts, revealing the red slit visor and black mask of an Imperial Inquisitor. Looking right at you, the Inquisitor tilts his head. You feel a wave of smug certainty brush against your awareness, coming from him. _You've been found out_.

You turn and run across the rooftop, launching yourself to the next. The Inquisitor is close behind – you can feel him. Your quick breathing is beginning to strain your throat. It's getting dark, too, on top of the rain. How are you going to get out of this? You know you can’t hide – Inquisitors have the Force, or at least you're pretty sure they're supposed to. Besides, you're headed out toward the very edge of the city.

The buildings begin to give way to tall, inoperative pieces of machinery as the rain pours down harder. They seem to be for mining, or something like that; whatever they're for, their metal surfaces are far more slippery than the roofs in the city. The Inquisitor’s heavy boots are loud behind you, as is his mask-distorted breathing. Starting to panic, you take a long, risky leap to the small, high-up platform of some kind of crane. You land.

Your feet slip.

You're falling. Your arms circle wildly in the air, but to no avail: you hit the muddy ground hard.

The not-unfamiliar feeling of having the wind knocked out of you comes, as if you've been punched directly in the lungs. You get your arms underneath you, trying to lift yourself, but fail. It's a miracle – well, okay, maybe it's more to do with the Force – that you aren’t dead. Bruised, definitely, and there's a throbbing pain in your right wrist, but you're alive. Can you still run?

The Inquisitor lands behind you with a swish and a quiet thud. You struggle to your feet and turn to face him, bent over slightly with the pain in your ribs and lungs. He holds a black, semicircular lightsaber hilt in his gloved right hand. A double-bladed saber, most likely, one of the modified ones that spins around the hilt. He's tall and seems to be human. At least, you've never seen anything else with hair that red, colour standing out even in the dark and the rain. You step back and nearly fall again.

“That’s kind of embarrassing.” The Inquisitor chuckles, voice twisted oddly by his mask. “Bad balance, huh?”

Your eyes are wide; your left hand, though injured, goes to your lightsaber, unwilling to take it out yet. You won’t be able to use it with your wrist like that. If you have to fight, you'll be stuck using your non-dominant hand. “What do you want?”

“Bold of you to assume it’s personal. After all, Jedi _are_ illegal.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” you tell him, teeth gritted.

“Oh, please!” He ignites his lightsaber, twin red blades reflecting off of his armour. “You know, your little explosion last night was quite something. Bad day?”

“Wh – how do you –” Kriff.

His saber-staff spins once around its modified hilt. “I could feel you all the way across the city! What’d those guys do, anyway? Try to mug you?” What scares you most is that you can hardly feel him through the Force. Earlier, he must’ve projected that self-certainty on purpose, but now? You can’t read anything from him but what you can see, and that isn’t much considering his mask. Of course, the waves of darkness rushing off of him are distracting enough.

“I – I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you try, heart pounding. “I think you must have the wrong person.”

He groans, mask turning the sound into a sort of metallic buzz. “C’mon, where’s that energy? I know you’re hiding from all that pain and rage.” He steps closer; you stumble back.

“I’m not hiding!”

“From yourself.” Another step forward. Your back is coming close to bumping into the slick metal panel behind you.

“No,” you deny frantically. “That’s not me. That’s not me, I’m not –”

“You’re not what?” he asks as your back hits the wall. “Not angry? Not _terrified_ you’re falling, all the while knowing that fear is what’ll drag you down?”

Your breath comes in ragged gasps. He's close now: you can feel the heat from his lightsaber on your shins. Why does he have to taunt you before he kills you?

“You’re not steadily convincing yourself that you’ll never be anything but alone?”

No, that isn't true! You cry out and ignite your lightsaber. He's wrong!

A low, buzzing laugh emerges from the Inquisitor's mask. " _There_ you are."

You refuse to look at the white blade of your saber, afraid of the angry red tendrils you know must be snaking around it. The crystal inside it is chipped and sends out irregular skeins of colour, responding to your emotions. Just calm down, you tell yourself. Just stop.

“That’s an odd lightsaber,” he notes, casually. “Not exactly a professional job. Cracked crystal, right? Changes colours?”

Your jaw clenches. Stay calm. Breathe. Will the darkness welling up inside you to just go away.

One of his red blades crashes against yours as you react to his quick strike without thinking. You can't push him away. His masked face is close to yours, red visor taking on a manic glow. “ _That’s not you_ , huh? Look at that red!

You swing your saber at him in vain. “Shut up!”

“You’re awfully angry for a Jedi.”

“And you’re awfully talkative for a slave of the Empire,” you spit.

He nods at your blade. “When’s the last time it didn’t look like that?”

 _“Shut up!”_ You kick him in the chest, shoving him back, and put some distance between you.

The Inquisitor laughs. “You know, there’s no point trying to fight me. I’d rather not kill you.”

“Why, feeling a new respect for life?” You push your wet hair away from your eyes. You don’t believe him for a second.

“I used to be a Jedi. We all did. I wanna see how far through the – _process_ – you’ll make it.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” you say, trying to sound brave. “Inquisitors are nothing more than the Empire’s attack dogs.”

He laughs again and leaps toward you with a wide swing of his lightsaber. You barely manage to parry his attack, staggering away. You aren’t strong enough to beat him. What are you going to do? Rashly, you go on the offensive.

You launch yourself forward with a yell, saber raised to strike his head – as he lifts his own in defense, you change course quickly with a slice to his left side. He dodges it and spins his blades again, chuckling robotically. When you lunge forward, trying to stab him, he sidesteps easily and sends you sprawling with a hard shove to your back. Your hands open reflexively as you fall.

Your lightsaber falls several metres away, out of your reach. The Inquisitor steps forward quickly, standing over you before you can retrieve it or stand. You're on your back, holding yourself up with one elbow, his black boots on either side of your body. You fight to keep your eyes clear of tears. Don’t cry, you tell yourself. Just don’t.

He tilts his head in mock-pity. “Aw, where’s your sword? You haven’t done this much, have you?”

His lightsaber moves toward your face. You can feel the heat coming off of the very tip of it as he draws it up, forcing you to tilt your chin up to look at him. Why doesn’t he just kill you? You ought to pull your saber back with the Force, but…

“Look at you – you won’t even use the Force to bring back your weapon in a fight. You’re totally out of control! Call me what you will, but at least I’m not too scared of my own power to use it.”

Without even thinking, your hand shoots out to the side. Your wrist screams at the pain of your lightsaber flying into your injured dominant hand, but you ignore it. He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to chase you, mock you, try and force you to admit to him that you don’t deserve to be a Jedi. Your white blade clashes against his red one. Still, you aren’t strong enough to push him away. The blades, spitting sparks into the darkness, are creeping slowly but surely toward your face.

You cry out again as you use the Force to shove him back. It's hard to focus, hard to call your power up from where you've pushed it down. What if you can’t do it? You don’t know how to use it, not properly – and you can feel the heat of your rising emotions threatening to take over.

He laughs from the short distance you've thrown him to. You scramble to your feet, holding your lightsaber up defensively at the complicated, lightning-fast spinning he's doing with his own blades. “That’s more like it! Don’t tell me that’s all you got.”

The energy rising inside you is almost too much. Your skin tingles, entire body trembling. Your fear is gone, somehow – it gives way to rage. Pure adrenaline. You run at him, not sure whether the baring of your teeth is a growl or a grin. Your strikes are faster with your dominant hand. The pain in your wrist only adds to the intoxicating power. He parries each of your strikes.

You almost hit him with one quick thrust and in retaliation, he kicks the back of your knee, sending you to the ground. There's a sudden heat on the back of your right shoulder. No, not heat – pain. Unimaginable pain. He’s stabbed you, and the end of his saber is still inside your shoulder. It smells sickening. He's just playing with you, you realise. You scream in pain and hatred as he withdraws his blade.

“C’mon,” he said. “You’re never gonna beat me. Give it up.”

_No._

You stand, shaking. The pain is intense, only stung more by the still-falling rain. You can't tell if your vision is going fuzzy or if it's clearer than it has ever been.

Either way – you point your saber directly at the Inquisitor. He doesn't get to win. You leap into the air, saber spinning rapidly as you rain blows down on him. He's still blocking your attacks, heavy boots planted in the mud as if he doesn't even _need_ to move to beat you. Finally, your blade grazes his mask, carving a shallow line into it from the chin across the visor. It's something, at least.

Even if you've barely managed to land a hit at all.

He kicks you, suddenly, in the wounded shoulder. Your vision blacks out momentarily; you hit the ground again, head snapping back painfully. You're vaguely aware of the feeling of your lightsaber leaving your hand as your head clears. There: he's holding it in one gloved hand, weighing it appraisingly before extinguishing it and tucking it into his belt.

Your legs threaten to buckle underneath you as you stand again. Even unarmed, you have to fight. You have to. But you can't step forward.

Why can't you move? The overwhelming power that was flooding your body begins to subside. You feel panicked. It's as if you aren't in control of your body at all – you're still as a statue, save for the shaking of your exhausted muscles.

Then you see the Inquisitor. He has one hand extended toward you. So this is his doing. You try to fight, but all that you succeed in doing is to increase the incessant shaking and the painful tension in your form.

He takes off his mask, then. You can't see his face, really, in the dark, but he seems to be evaluating the damage. “You really got me, huh.”

He shrugs. His voice is strangely soft without the mask’s distortion. It's frightening. He walks toward you and your eyes widen. “Well, a mask’s a mask. I’m more interested in my shiny new toy…”

You can see his face now. He's far taller than you, but you have no choice but to see: your feet lift off the ground as he uses the Force to lift you up to his level. His red hair is pushed back, but a few strands still fall, rebellious, into his pale face. Several sharp scars mark his skin. There is a strange shine to his green eyes, but most of all he just looks human. Without the mask, he doesn't look like the monster you know he is. You wish he’d kept it on.

He grins at you, and his red blade creeps toward your throat. Kriff, this is how you die. Unable even to struggle.

Then the light provided by his weapon goes out. The tension in your body releases, and you fall to the ground limp. You don't even have time to think before your mind shuts down.


	3. A Shining Artifact of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen (Sigrid cover)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfLOt5P6nSk

Your eyes open slowly. You’re slumped over, leaning against a metal wall. Your wrists are cuffed. What’s going on?

Then you remember. The Inquisitor, the fight – wait, are you dead? Is this what happens when you die? No, that’s ridiculous. Well, at least you hope that the afterlife, if it exists, isn’t a cold metal floor and uncomfortable cuffs. Your vision clears and you realise that you’re definitely not dead.

No, this is probably worse.

There’s a transparisteel panel in front of you, though you have to look up to see out of it. It’s just stars in front of you, except for where your view is obstructed by a person-shaped obstacle. The Inquisitor’s red hair gives him away. Besides, his black mask is perched on the control panel in front of him. You’re on his ship. Kriff. Didn’t he say something about wanting you alive – some kind of “process”? Your head’s too fuzzy to remember clearly. It hurts, too. You remind yourself, with a kind of numb humour, not to be beaten up by Inquisitors too often in the future.

Again, you curse the fact that you don’t have much in the way of skill to go along with your Force-sensitivity. Kriffing Jedi. Of course, it is your own fault, but their expectations really were awfully high for children. You think back to your past with the Jedi.

_“Y/N, you must learn to forgo emotion. You must learn control.” You’re four, and the admonishment from your instructor only makes you more upset. It’s not fair! Sometimes you just have to be emotional – why shouldn’t you? You don’t understand all the things you’re told about the Dark Side. You just want to be you._

_“I need you to calm down, Y/N. Emotion is a sure path toward the Dark.” At age six, you’re still irritated by the reminder. It’s not like you were mad or anything. You were just excited about saber training this afternoon. What’s the problem with being excited?_

_Your youngling robe is scratchy, and at eight years old, you’re beginning to think it’s that way on purpose. Your instructors are always looking at you sideways, like you’re a thermal detonator rolling too close for comfort. Well, you’re trying to be good! It’s just that it doesn’t make sense. Why would you feel emotions at all if they’re so bad?_

_“Do you ever wonder about your family?” nine-year-old you asks some of the other younglings. They all shake their heads as if you’re out of your mind, leaving you alone in the common area. They’re always avoiding you. You know you’re not supposed to think about this kind of thing, but you still wonder. Did you have parents? Why did they give you to the Jedi? The only thing you know is where you were born: Christophsis. Of course, that’s a whole planet. Even if you wanted to look, you’d never find your birth family. And you can’t help harbouring a little bit of resentment that they gave you away, anyway._

_“Y/N… pack your things, please. I’m afraid you just don’t have the self-control to continue here. You’re causing those around you to falter in their own paths.” You can’t help the wave of shock, hurt, and anger that washes over you. They can’t just send you away! But before you can protest, you’re ushered away to get together what few possessions you have._

_You’re not yet ten when you step off the starship and onto the surface of Christophsis. There were a few Knights already going, so they took you with them. It’s not like you know anything about the planet, except that it’s where you were born. Nobody makes any eye contact with you as the ship’s doors close. For the first time, you don’t have any trouble controlling your emotions. You’re totally numb._

_The only person you like on this whole planet, you decide soon after your tenth birthday, is Jai Dyos. He’s a Jedi, a lower-level soldier posted on the planet. He’s nice. In secret, he’s teaching you the ways of the Force; he says that soon he’ll teach you to make your very own lightsaber from one of the kyber crystals that can be found on Christophsis. You can’t have lessons very often, on account of his being busy and the fact that you’re not supposed to have anything to do with the Jedi anymore. Still, it’s good._

_You’re twelve when the Jedi Order falls. It doesn’t even feel satisfying – not that it should. Of course it shouldn’t. They abandoned you, but this is horrible. And for all their control, all their peace – you can feel the horror of their deaths screaming through the Force._

_It’s not long after, when you go to meet with Jai to figure out what you’re going to do, that they find you. His last words are telling you to run. You hate yourself for obeying him. Still, you never were any good at controlling your emotions, and there’s so much fear._

You blink the memories away. There’s no point in dwelling on them, not when you’re in another dismal situation. You’re better at pushing things down now – not letting them go, like you were told to do as a youngling, but just ignoring them. You just have to keep doing that. You ran away and let Jai die: you’re not going to let him down again by losing the Light. That’s the only thing keeping you together some days.

The Inquisitor doesn’t seem to notice that you’re awake, or if he does, he doesn’t do anything about it. He’s doing something with the controls up front. You still can’t feel much from him through the Force, and that makes it hard to remember that he’s the monster he is. He doesn’t look all that monstrous, at least right now. He’s just a guy piloting a ship, brushing hair out of his face absentmindedly and humming a tune to himself that sounds strangely familiar.

You slip back out of consciousness, giving in to the overpowering weight of your eyelids. It might be the last time you really sleep for a long time.


	4. Like a Pavlov Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bidding - Tally Hall  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipYafcHd0jA

When you come to again, it’s with a harsh pain in your head. This time it doesn’t take you any time at all to remember what happened, but you are confused by your surroundings. It’s a small room, windowless, made entirely of dark metal. There’s a door up at the top of a small set of stairs. What is that, some kind of psychological technique? This kind of level difference can’t be efficient. You’re lying on your side, on a low bench across from the stairs. You assume this is an Imperial holding cell. Kriff.

Your head throbs as you sit up. It’s a clumsy process: your wrists are still cuffed together, and your dominant hand is definitely hurt. Probably broken, though you can’t be sure. Normally you’d use a stim pack and be fine, but circumstances forbid it. You’re not sure how you’re gong to get out of this. Can you, even? You don’t want to think about it. The Force feels sick, contributing to your headache.

The door is nearly silent as it opens, hissing with released pressure. You stiffen instinctively. There are two pairs of shiny black boots in the doorway – you’re beginning to recognise the Inquisitor’s curiously guarded Force signature. Somebody else is there with him, though, and you can feel the unchecked hatred, balanced only by trained elegance, rolling off of them. The two of them descend into the holding cell and you force yourself not to shrink back into the wall.

The red-haired, talkative Inquisitor is still without a mask. You suppose it must be being repaired. The other Inquisitor wears a full helmet, flaring out at the back and tapering harshly to a near-point where her chin must be underneath. She’s taller than the redhead, and holds herself high as if she’s on a knife’s edge. You gulp.

“A Jedi. How curious.” Her voice doesn’t make you any less anxious.

“I – I’m not a Jedi.”

“You were found in possession of a lightsaber,” she says, stepping forward. “The Eleventh Brother tells me you knew how to use it, and that you used the Force, if not with any particular effectiveness.”

Your jaw clenches, making your head hurt more. She’s trying to goad you into a reaction, you remind yourself. You just have to stick to the Light.

“I put his mask out of commission, clearly,” you retort. So he’s called the Eleventh Brother. Strange.

“The only hit you managed to land, wasn’t it?” There’s an amused tone to her voice. You’re not looking at the Eleventh Brother, who still hasn’t spoken, contrary to how he’d been during your fight.

“I had to make it count. Those things are eyesores.” Your old instructors wouldn’t approve of your rudeness, but you don’t think these Sith wannabes deserve your best manners. And it’s better than letting your voice waver like it wants to.

“Where did you learn to use the Force?”

“The same place you learned to dress yourself,” you snap back. “Nowhere.”

“Don’t test me, scum.”

“Why not? I think my schedule’s pretty free.”

“The Eleventh Brother,” she says, very close now. “Thinks you’ve got potential. That’s the only reason you’re alive, and my patience wears thin.”

You don’t respond. Her signature in the Force is almost painful itself, just to be near. It’s angry, full of hate. You can feel it tearing down your defenses.

“I’ll ask you again. Where did you learn to use the Force?” Her hand reaches toward her lightsaber hilt.

Your eyes are wide. “I – the Jedi Temple. Partially.” Maybe she won’t kill you if you just comply, right? Talking back didn’t work.

“Partially?”

You hesitate. “I was sort of kicked out. I couldn’t do their no-emotions thing.”

She turns to look at the Eleventh Brother, who nods. What does he know? “Lines up with my vision,” he tells her. What vision?

“What do you want with me?” you ask, hands fidgeting nervously in the confines of the cuffs.

The female Inquisitor looks at you again, and though you can’t see her eyes, you still feel them boring into you. The darkness inside her pounds against your mind as if to beat the Light out of you. She’s in your head – you feel her consciousness like a drill. Your vision goes black. You’re half-aware of your hands coming up to protect your head, though the attack isn’t physical. Emotions and memories flash through your head as she accesses them.

_“We’ve found the Jedi fugitives.” Shiny white helmets, heavy boots stomping toward you. Jai ignites his lightsaber; the noise is almost drowned out by blaster fire. He turns to look at you where you’re frozen with fear._

_“Y/N, run – don’t let –”_

You scream. _Get out of my head!_

She’s pushed out, but you can still feel her presence. “Create a file,” she tells the Eleventh Brother, and then she’s walking up the stairs and out of the cell. Her overwhelming anger fades into the distance, leaving you alone with the Eleventh Brother.

Your hands are still up over your face; you wipe away a tear you didn’t realise you’d shed. You’re shaking. It feels suddenly very cold in the cell. You draw your knees up to your chest.

“I think she likes you,” quips the Eleventh Brother. You glare up at him. He shrugs and says, “I mean, if she didn’t you’d be dead, so…”

You don’t answer. So you’re not dead yet – so what? Is this the _‘process’_ he’d mentioned before? Making you relive your worst memories, knowing that somebody else is watching them with you?

“Anyway,” he continues, pulling a datapad out of some concealed pocket. “I gotta ask you some questions. What’s your name?”

“What does it matter? You don’t have names, just numbers.” The Eleventh Brother, the – whatever the female Inquisitor was called.

He rolls his eyes. “Of course we have names. We just don’t use ‘em.”

“Then why do you need mine?”

“Fine.” He levels you with a mock-charming smile. “Hi, I’m Cal Kestis. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

You narrow your eyes at him but concede. “Y/N Y/L/N.”

He types the name into the datapad with a focused look. “And where’re you from?”

“Christophsis.”

“Really?” He looks up. “Oh, makes sense, I guess. With the homemade lightsaber and everything. Who’s that guy that was teaching you after you got kicked out? I’m guessing not your Master.”

“He was stationed on Christophsis.” You don’t want to talk about Jai. “He’d just become a Knight recently.”

“Took pity on you?”

“You could say that.”

“So you were never a Padawan.”

You nod.

“ _I_ was.” He laughs lightly. “Would’ve outranked you, then. Still do – well, I will, once you’re one of us.”

“An Inquisitor?”

“Yeah, duh. It’s _way_ more fun than all that Jedi stuff, y’know? Don’t feel anything, don’t have relationships, don’t make fun of the stupid way Yoda talks, blah blah.”

Your mouth twitches at that. Master Yoda did speak strangely, probably because he was so old. You always felt like you should’ve been congratulated on how much self-control you did manage to exercise when it came to keeping your mouth shut about it. Of course, you’re sure he’s dead now, along with the rest of the Jedi.

“You know, you really shouldn’t hold in smiles like that,” he chides you, looking down at you with a curious grin on his face. “Nobody’s even torturing you yet!” He says it brightly, as if torture is par for the course. Perhaps it is. This is the kriffing worst.

His datapad beeps, and his brow furrows. “Looks like I gotta go. See you later, Y/N.”

He leaves quickly, bouncing a little on his way up the stairs. You’re left alone in the cell. It’s funny, you think to yourself, that the room feels emptier now that the Eleventh Brother – Cal – whatever you’re going to call him – has left, than when the other Inquisitor did. Very strange, that his near-total lack of any apparent Force signature can feel more present than all of her overwhelming emotion.


	5. Afraid of What I Am (I Can Take It)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did I simply do away with menstruation? Yes :) Yes I did :)
> 
> Burn Bright - My Chemical Romance  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ClqIzZwYw

It’s a long time before you’re able to gather your courage and start to think about trying to escape. It’s probably a bad idea, you know that, but you have to try. Not for any heroic reason or anything. You just really, _really_ don’t want to be tortured. No way are you going to survive whatever they do to make Inquisitors – and, okay, maybe there’s a part of you that fears it would be easier than you’d like to think.

Finally, you think of something. You climb up the stairs leading toward the door, casting your mind outward. The Dark Side is strong here, and you try to ignore it, focusing on who’s just outside the door. It’s two stormtroopers. You close your eyes and try to gather more information. Surprised and pleased, you realise one is female – perfect. “Hey!” you shout, pounding your uninjured hand against the door.

“What?” One of them knocks back harshly with what sounds like the butt of a blaster.

“I need to use a washroom!”

“Suck it up, Jedi scum!” Polite.

“For, you know, women’s issues,” you elaborate, praying this guy is as uncomfortable with menstruation as most guys you’ve met. Mostly, menstruation is a thing of the past, since technology has been developed to make it an opt-in thing instead of a universal reality. Hopefully, this guy doesn’t have the presence of mind to think of that, though. “You know, every so often females will bleed from their –”

“Fine, okay!” You grin. “Stand back from the door, I’m sending another female in to retrieve you.” You don’t stand all the way back, moving instead to crouch next to the stairs.

The female stormtrooper enters, and as soon as the door closes behind her, you leap for her neck, wrapping your arms around the un-armoured area and your legs around her arms and torso. She struggles, but after a while her air runs out and you both fall to the floor.

You don’t have much time before the other trooper catches on. Acting quickly, you take off her armour and black bodysuit, feeling only a little bad as you change into them. On the plus side, you’re the same size. She’s got a keycard – well, you have it now – which you use to unlock your cuffs. You put on her helmet, glad for the voice modulator and anonymity. Then you use the keycard to open the door, moving to stand outside next to the other trooper.

“Where’s the prisoner?” he asks.

“False alarm,” you respond, truthfully. “Piece of trash was just causing trouble.”

He nods. “The last of the Jedi can’t be exterminated quick enough.”

“Sure. Hey, now I gotta use the washroom. Be right back, yeah?”

“Whatever.”

You march off along the hallway, hoping it’s believable that this is the way you’re going to the washroom. Really, you don’t know where you’re going, except that you hope you’ll figure out where exactly you are and how to get out. You’re in space, you come to realise as you look out a massive window. So you’ll have to find a ship.

You don’t feel the Second Sister, at least, too close by. You do, however, think you must be tricking yourself into thinking you’re getting funny looks from the people around you. There’s no way for them to know you’re not really a stormtrooper. After a while, you turn a corner and you can see a large hangar at the end of the hall. Uneasy, you chance a quick look behind you.

Oh kriff. That’s the kriffing Eleventh Brother. He’s walking close behind you – you didn’t feel him in the Force. There’s no way you’re fooling him, though. He’s smirking at you. You walk faster, not wanting to attract the attention of all the stormtroopers as well, but now that you’re paying attention you sense him speeding up too.

You break into a run as you get into the hangar, weaving through the identical white suits of armour. Somebody tries to ask you something – you’re forced to turn away from the stairs leading up to the tethered TIE fighters. You’re going to have to climb up. You’re good at scaling walls, luckily, and you make it to the platform quickly.

When you turn toward the ships, the Eleventh Brother is already there. Kriff. You double back and run down the empty hallway behind you. Desperation makes your breath sting your lungs.

Suddenly, you’re picked up and thrown into the wall. You struggle to catch your breath; pulling yourself to your feet takes a herculean effort.

“Trying to leave so soon?” he asks conversationally.

You don’t respond, raising your fists and backing away.

“Can’t say I’m not impressed. How’d you get out of the cell?”

“Uh –” You panic. “I think you’ve got the wrong stormtrooper, sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about –”

Your feet are pulled out from under you again as he uses the Force to draw you close to him. Your body shakes with the shock of being moved so quickly and put down; you nearly fall onto him. His gloved right hand rests around your throat. His left lifts the helmet off your head, and your hair falls into your wide eyes.

You can feel your pulse quicken under his hand. He’s not really holding tight – it’s almost gentle. He’s much taller than you; you have to look up to meet his eyes. You’re struck, suddenly, by the unwelcome thought that the Eleventh Brother – _Cal_ – is very attractive.

“You should know a mask won’t really hide you from me,” he practically purrs. “I like it when you call me _sir_ , though.”

You’re startled, snapped out of your thoughts, and you step quickly back. He catches you before you can go anywhere – his hand tightens around your throat and he pushes you back until your back hits the wall. Your airway is slightly constricted now. You can feel the feverish heat coming off his body as it boxes you in, and his thumb moves from your throat to your chin, tilting it up so you have to look at his face.

“Let me go,” you whisper. “Please.”

He grins slowly, then laughs. It causes the pressure on your throat to grow. “Oh, Y/N, why would I do that when you’re so much fun to keep around?”

“You have to know the Empire’s evil. They killed the Jedi, they kill innocents. You were a Jedi, Cal,” you plead, hoping against hope that his real name might help your cause. “There has to be something good left in you – please –”

His grip on your throat is tight, choking you. Your vision is fuzzy. “Trust me,” he snarls. “There’s not.”

That’s the last thing you hear before you lose consciousness.


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing you recognise when you finally come to is pain. Your neck hurts, and there’s an ache in your back, the kind you get from sleeping on it funny. You’re sitting upright. Why are you sitting upright?

Your eyes open slowly, stung by the light. There are metal restraints around your wrists and ankles, you realise. You’re in a chair of some kind. There are electrical panels about a foot from your face, blocking some of your view of the room around you, which is much the same as the cell you were in before, but with a clear force field instead of a door. There seems to be a sort of control desk over to your right.

“Took you long enough,” says a voice you’re less than thrilled to recognise. “I almost thought you were in some kind of coma for a second there.”

“What’s –” You falter. “Where is this?”

Cal chuckles. “You remember I mentioned the process, how Inquisitors are made?” Oh kriff. “This,” he says, stepping into your field of vision. “Is where the magic happens.”

You pull in vain at the restraints.

“You know you’re wasting energy,” he chides.

“Let me go!”

He sighs and steps back to the control panel, boots clicking quietly on the metal floor. “Try not to bite your tongue.” He presses a button.

Nothing happens.

Then he pulls a switch and your body lights up with the worst pain you’ve ever felt. Your back stiffens and pulls away from the chair. Every part of you feels as if it’s burning on the faces of a thousand suns; your eyes are shut so tightly that you’re seeing white instead of the usual darkness. You keep your mouth shut tight, willing yourself to stay quiet, though your teeth are clenched together already.

Finally, the burning stops. You collapse back against the chair and try not to let a sob accompany the tears springing to your eyes. Your mouth tastes slightly of blood. There’s a ringing in your ears.

“Fun, isn’t it?” He almost skips toward you, leaning forward to look into your eyes. “Yeah, it’s fun. Well, maybe more for me than for you.” He tilts his head dismissively.

Your breath is shaky, and a tear falls down your face.

“Ah, don’t cry yet, we’re just getting started!”

“Please,” you beg him. “Let me go.”

Cal rolls his eyes. “Look, at this point you’re getting out of here one of two ways. Either it’s as my newest most favourite-est coworker – or it’s as a corpse.”

“I won’t become an Inquisitor. I won’t give in.”

“That’s okay,” he says, moving back to the control desk. “No need to make a decision now.”

The pain is worse this time, or at least it feels worse. Your limbs pull against the metal restraints around them hard enough that you actually feel it through the agony coursing through you. It takes all you have to keep quiet.

It seems like hours pass before it stops again. Now you can’t help the quiet crying that escapes you. Through your half-closed eyes, you can see Cal in front of you again. “Truth be told,” he tells you. “I don’t really need you to agree to become an Inquisitor.”

“Then let me go,” you cry. “Please.”

“Ah.” He shakes his head. “No, you’ve misunderstood my meaning. See, I don’t need you to agree to anything. Really, I don’t need you at all. It’s the person that gets out of the chair, after, that’s gonna be on my side.”

“No.”

“We’ll see,” he says lightly. You hear his boots click back over.

This time, when the pain comes, you can’t do anything to make yourself stop screaming.


	7. A Little Loss of Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long!

Cal is not your only torturer. Over the next – well, you don’t know how long – you see the black uniforms of Imperial officers at the switchboard, and once or twice the Second Sister steps in to just look at you and cast her mind into yours. You don’t exactly get used to the shocks, but your throat is practically numb now and the screaming doesn’t hurt. You don’t sleep. You’re tired. You catch yourself feeling more angry than afraid or pained. Without thinking of Jai, you know you would have given in by now, but you can’t let him down.

When Cal does come in, though, it’s almost better than the rest. He’s always talkative, not that you really process most of what he says; you know he’s getting his helmet back soon, but in the meantime he’s the most alive person you see, and that’s oddly comforting. You still can’t feel his Force signature.

After a particularly brutal session with one of the nameless officers, vision blurry and head spinning, you feel the restraints around you release. Your body falls limp to the ground. Your head hits the floor, and you pass out.

You’re pulled back into consciousness by a hand shaking your shoulder, jarring your bruised muscles. Someone is calling your name. “Jai?” you whisper, head fuzzy.

“Y/N –” It’s not Jai. The voice half-sings your name. “Y/N, c’mon, you’re being boring.”

You open your eyes to see Cal leaning over you. “Leave me alone,” you scrape out, too exhausted to do anything else.

“What kinda fun would that be?” he asks. “For me, of course. Making you mad’s the whole point.”

“I’m not mad.” Your voice is hoarse and quiet.

“Right, sure, and my hair’s not red.”

“I’m not mad, I’m waiting.”

“I mean, me too, for you to give it up.” He pulls your arm over his shoulders and pulls you to your feet, mostly leaning on him as your knees buckle under you.

“I’m waiting to die.” You ramble on. “Most of surviving is willpower, and I’m fresh out.” Your mouth curves upward.

He doesn’t say anything to that, just steadies you with his gloved hands as you stand independently. A medical droid glides toward you, the glare off of its shiny head hurting your eyes. It scans you and drones out its findings. “Vitals stable. Temperature high. Fractured fourth and fifth metacarpal bones on one hand. Severe contusion through shoulder, healing well. Extreme exhaustion.”

“See?” he says. “We get to have lots more fun.”

Your head spins, and your vision cuts out for a moment. Suddenly, you feel his arms crashing into you again; as your eyes clear, you realise you’d started to fall. “Thanks,” you say absently.

“Falling for me already?”

You regain some clarity and jerk out of his grasp. “Screw you. You’re a pathetic excuse for a Sith Lord.”

“I’m not Sith.” His jaw tightens. “I’m an Inquisitor. And so will you be, soon.”

“Never!” Your voice cuts out when you try to shout. Your good hand goes up to your exhausted throat; you cough, and you tip back to find yourself leaning against the edge of the control board.

Cal walks leisurely toward you. You glare over to the side of him, unwilling to face him, but he turns your head up to look at him with the tip of one gloved finger. “So I was wondering, this Jai guy – he the guy that taught you?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He does matter, more than anything, which is why you don’t want to tell Cal anything about him.

“’Course it does.” He tilts your head to look at you from another angle. “The Second Sister tells me you’re pretty much just holding on for him. Don’t wanna let him down, I bet, right?”

“You don’t care, you’re just trying to get under my skin.”

“I’m curious,” he protests as if offended.

You glare at him. “Why do you always wear those gloves?”

He looks amused, almost fond, and laughs to himself. “Curious too, huh?” You don’t respond. “Psychometry,” he explains. “When I touch things, I learn things about their histories through the Force.”

“You can’t control it?” you ask, trying to find a soft spot to pick on. “It must be hard. I mean, everything you touch must be steeped in death.”

“Oh, Y/N, so am I.” He runs his right thumb over your jaw. Then his eyes glimmer. “Wanna see me in action?”

You know he’s not really waiting for an answer, so you glower and stay silent. He pulls off his right glove slowly and, as you reflexively lean away, returns his now-bare hand to your chin.

Surprisingly, you don’t see anything. You feel a strange surge of emotions (which emotions, you couldn’t say) rush out of you, but whatever he’s seeing is a mystery to you. It’s not like what the Second Sister does. You’re not sure which is preferable. Cal’s expression is hard to decipher too: he blinks a few times in rapid succession, and his face tenses in an odd way. He lets his hand fall away sharply and puts his glove back on.

“Never done that on a living being before,” he remarks casually, turning to take a few steps away. “I’m a little surprised it worked. Feels weird, though.”

“It’s called remorse for stealing my memories,” you mutter. You’re still leaning against the switchboard.

He spins back toward you. “Please – I don’t feel remorse. Not part of the package.” He winks.

“You’re awful.”

“Uh, yeah, duh.”

Tears come to your eyes unprompted. “Why can’t you just kill me?”

“I can’t do that,” he says, looking somehow surprised at you. “I gotta get you on the dream team.”

“Find someone else!” You slam a fist against the metal behind you, and bite your lip when you realise it’s your hurt hand. The pain only keeps your tears coming.

“Nope. You’re the one we picked. The chosen one, in that respect.” He laughs.

“I don’t want to be!” You go to step forward, angry, but your legs give out under you and you fall. Your head is fuzzy again; the fact that you’re crying just adds pressure. Cal picks you up. You’re so exhausted, all you can do is cry. “I don’t want to, Cal,” you sob as you begin to lose consciousness.

He lifts you into the chair and puts the restraints back on. “I know,” you think you hear him say softly. You’ve passed out again, though, before you can tell whether or not it’s real.


	8. Left to Prove

The next time you see Cal, you don’t talk. You’re afraid that if you do anything but ignore him, you’ll be giving in somehow. Still, your drive to escape has been replaced by a desire to prolong what feels inevitable at this point. He seems disappointed when he leaves; he let you out of the chair at some point, and he doesn’t bother putting you back before, lying face-up on the ground, you hear the door shut behind him.

After a long while, you try to move. Slowly, you’re able to get onto your feet and stand, albeit not too steadily. You’re mostly numb. It seems that you’re too exhausted to process most of your pain by now. You walk around the room at a glacial pace - you manage to speed up after a while, and despite being sore it feels good to move of your own accord.  _ Which you could do all the time, _ part of your mind points out,  _ if you’d just give in and become an Inquisitor _ . It’s not really true, but it feels true in comparison to now. Thinking of Jai is beginning to feel stupid.

You pause to lean against the edge of the control panel and rest for a few moments. As you close your eyes, there’s a loud, dull clicking noise that echoes around the cell and seemingly past it. You open them and find that the lights are out. A red warning light flashes behind you, but everything else is shut down. What’s going on? Brow furrowed, you push random buttons on the panel. Nothing happens.

Is it possible that there’s been a power outage?

You blink slowly a few times. Then your brain catches up - a power outage! With everything down, this is your best chance to get out! You start up, moving toward the door before thinking better of going outside where there are likely to be stormtroopers or worse. Even if they’re focused on repairing the power, it’s still a big risk. So now what? That’s not a viable option, though you’ll try it if it’s your only choice. You spot a metal square that stands out from the rest of the cell walls and move toward it, conscious of the risk of being walked in on at any time. It’s a vent cover, big enough to squeeze past if you can get it open.

Finally, your luck pulls through. The cover comes loose, perhaps due to a magnetic fastening being disabled. Or something. You don’t really care, too busy shoving it aside and crawling into the vent. It’s a pretty tight space, but you’re managing. Kriff, what you wouldn’t give for a healing stim or some bacta now, though. On top of everything else, your shuffling along isn’t easy on your knees and elbows.

After a lot of turning corners and scraping your extremities against the metal, you find yourself in front of a ladder, which you climb with no small degree of difficulty and discomfort. You lie still for a minute at the top, letting yourself breathe. But you can’t stay there, so you start crawling again, just enough to see out of another vent cover on the wall in front of you. This vent is a dead end, not turning anywhere else. You’re still again, peering through the narrow slats in the cover. It’s a hallway. It looks like it’s totally empty, and you can see another cover across the open space that explains why this vent ends here. You’re going to have to risk getting out, no matter what. Taking a deep breath, you push the cover open as quietly as you can and slide clumsily out onto the floor.

As you thought, there’s nobody within earshot. That’s strange, but it’s also lucky. You decide to continue down the hallway to spare yourself from more crawling. Your feet are practically silent on the metal floor; you walk cautiously to the end of the hall and twist your head around the corner to see what’s there. It’s a ship hangar. You nearly can’t believe it - it’s empty, or at least it looks like it from here. This means you can commandeer a ship and get out! Well, hopefully. You haven’t flown a TIE fighter before, and that’s all that’s here. And that’s assuming you won’t be shot down before even getting out of the hanger.

Still. This is your chance.

You tiptoe into the hangar and stay close to the wall on your way to the very nearest TIE. This feels too easy to be true, in a way, but maybe you’re just getting a well-deserved break after being tortured? You hope that’s it. You have to climb up another ladder to reach the ship. Taking a breath before climbing, you grab onto the rungs and start upward. This whole situation feels unnervingly like your attempt at escape dressed as a stormtrooper. What if it’s a trap? The lights in the hangar flash on and off in a power-loss warning sequence. You reach the top, and there’s nobody there to stop you, contrary to your morbid expectation. A half-smile pushes itself forward: the first real, natural smile you’ve had in a while.

The ship’s door opens easily enough. You climb inside and, closing it behind yourself, start to figure out the controls. The pilot’s chair is blessedly soft, at least compared to the metal chair you’ve been strapped to for who-knows-how-long. You strap yourself in and power on the TIE. It pulls back with a sudden, fast movement, startling you, and then jerks against the tether it’s attached to; you press a button to release it after a few seconds of confusion. At last, you’re good to go. The hanger’s exit is in the ceiling, which is unusual, and it’s open since the force field closing it off is out. Really, this is suspiciously lucky, but once you’re out in space you’ll have  _ some _ kind of chance at least.

The the transparisteel windshield, you can see a number of stormtroopers as the enter the hangar. Your heart hits your throat. They start firing once they realise you’re not one of them, and instead of shooting back you just fly haphazardly out of the hanger. You nearly crash into the metal edge of the exit, but the next second you’re speeding through the open sky and out of reach of the troopers’ guns. You’re on an aquatic planet, it looks like - all this time, you’d had the idea in your head that you were in a ship somewhere, but in fact it was a mostly-underwater fortress all along. It looks as scary outside as it is inside, made of dull black metal stabbing up from below the deep water.

You thank the Force that you’re even seeing the outside, and then you point the ship straight up and break through the atmosphere. Now you’re in spae, and you instantly feel much better. You don’t know where you’re going to go now, but it’s going to be far away from here. You cast your mind about to try and remember coordinates from places you’ve been before, as a place to start. Some numbers come back to you; crossing your fingers that you’re not jumping into a planet’s core, you punch them into the hyperdrive and go.

In another minute, you’re floating above a small, pale planet that you recognise vaguely. You direct the ship downward and cruise over the surface for a while, looking for civilisation. Hopefully the inhabitants haven’t noticed the loud screech of the TIE, but it’s unlikely. They probably won’t it to you, though. Spotting a town, you fly overhead and land the ship some distance away. The bump of the landing is one of the greatest feelings of your life, you think.

You climb out of the TIE after checking all the internal compartments and nearly crying when you find credits in one of them. First order of business: find someplace to get cleaned up, and maybe a change of clothes. Second order of business: get something real to eat. And then you’ll come back to the ship, and sleep in that shockingly great seat. You set off in the direction of the town, newly confident and looking forward to being clean.


	9. Migraine

You wake up much later in the TIE, understandably sore but much refreshed by sleeping. Going into the town went well: you cleaned up and got a change of clothes, as well as getting something to eat at a place you seemed to recognise from when you’d been here before. You didn’t remember much about this place, but at least there doesn’t seem to be much Imperial presence here, if any. Stretching, you discover as you get up gingerly, feels good but makes a lot of noise in your back and joints.

It’s a little chilly outside. The fresh air is wonderful against your face, and the sun is almost at its peak in the sky. You miss the familiar weight of your lightsaber against your side. Still, you’re alive and free, and you’ve got credits left over. You decide to get something to eat. Something nice and warm.

The walk into town is medium length, not particularly short, but it’s pleasant anyway. You walk among rolling hills covered in rustling yellowish grass. It’s quiet; you’re the only creature you see other than something small that hurries off out of sight as you pass by. You spot what look like berries growing low to the ground, and you resist the temptation to try them in case they don’t agree with you. You’re not that desperate, whether they lead to death or just indigestion.

Eventually you reach the small town. The singular diner is easy to spot, being pretty much the center of activity. You enter and sit down in a booth in the corner, attracting a few curious looks but not enough to worry you.

A female Elomin approaches you with a holopad in hand. You noticed her working here yesterday; she’s intimidatingly tall and beautiful, crown of pale tusks standing out against her deep purple skin. “What’ll you have?” she asks.

“Soup, please,” you respond. What kind of soup, you don’t know, but somebody else’s bowl smelled good on your way in. She nods and punches your order into her holopad.

You look down at your hands, distracted, as you sense someone stopping the waiter next to your booth. “I’ll have what she’s having,” the person says, in a familiar-sounding voice. The waiter walks off and the stranger slides in across from you.

You don’t look at him at first, kind of irritated at his audacity. “You can have what I’m having,” you say, “But you can have it at any of the other empty tables.”

“There’s a better view here,” he replies with a grin in his voice.

You snap your eyes up to glare at him. Your eyes widen in the next second, and you start to slide out of your seat.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Cal tells you. “By which I mean, run and I can guarantee you a really not-fun day.”

You freeze, tense and scared. “Why are you here?” You know why, but you don’t know what else to say.

“To bring you back, duh. I was actually kind of impressed that you got all the way here. Freak power outage, caused a whole lot of trouble.” He shrugs nonchalantly.

“So if I run, I’m going to be in trouble, and if I stay, I’m going to be tortured more, right?” You drum your fingers nervously on the table.

He rolls his eyes. “Look, Y/N, as much as I live for our contentious relationship, I’m also sick to death of Inquisitorium cafeteria food. So at least if you’re going to try and get away, can you wait until after lunch?”

“I don’t think so, Imp,” you snap, afraid and trying to look tougher than you feel.

“Here,” he sighs. “I’ll make it fair.” He holds a gloved hand out to you; your eyes widen again when you see that he’s offering you your lightsaber. “You gotta be pretty weak, so it’s not like I won’t beat you later, but if it makes you feel better…”

It does give you more of a leg up, and by staying you’re buying yourself time, so you nod. “You’re not in your uniform,” you point out, sitting back down and grabbing your lightsaber. He’s wearing a black jumpsuit and the same kind of light, black armour you’ve seen him in before, but there’s no Imperial insignia on any of it, and he has on a dark-red, patched poncho overtop.

“Nah, I’m undercover. Didn’t wanna make a huge scene, you know? Plus it’s more fun this way.”

“ _ You _ didn’t want to make a scene?” you retort.

He laughs. “Out of character, I know. Though, stealing a TIE fighter and landing it right where you are isn’t exactly subtle, in terms of sneaking around. You know we can track those, right?” You glare at him. He laughs again and raises his hands as if to say, ‘don’t shoot the messenger’.

“Do Sith slaves even  _ have _ any character?” you snip.

His jaw tightens slightly. “Not Sith. And -” He shifts in his seat and raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know what else you’d call my extraordinary sense of humour and charm.”

“Delusion, maybe.” He is, in a way, sort of charming. Objectively. He’s also, objectively speaking, basically a Sith.

“See, I think we’re really gonna get along once you get with the program. You’re funny.”

You make a face. It rubs you the wrong way that he talks as if your fall is inevitable. “I think I’d get along with you better if you weren’t trying to torture me into becoming someone else entirely.”

He shrugs. You glare at him. The waiter comes back and sets down two bowls of soup; Cal smiles winningly at her and she smiles back. You try the soup; it’s good even considering the fact that you’re in mortal danger.

Cal sips from his bowl, red hair trying to get in the way. “This is great,” he says once he’s swallowed. “What’s in it?”

Now it’s your turn to shrug. Neither of you say anything for a few minutes while you eat. You spend the time thinking of how you can escape back to the ship. At this point, it’s just a matter of getting out of the diner and running as fast as you can. Maybe you can trick him into letting you out of his sight. 

You take a deep breath and start to slide out of your seat again.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, guarded.

“Using the washroom.” You roll your eyes. “Relax.”

He settles back but looks at you with calculating eyes. You keep your lightsaber tucked into your clothes, puffing out a tense breath as you walk away in the direction of the washroom. The waiter glances at you as you pass and you force a tight smile in her direction. You certainly don’t want to get into a fight in here - you wouldn’t put it past Cal to kill everyone here without hesitating, if they were in his way. Once you’re out of sight, you enter the washroom and are relieved to see a window up high; you climb through it without too much trouble except for lasting muscle pain, and your clumsy landing on the ground.

You’re out, and you even have your lightsaber. Looks like Cal underestimated you, you think, smirking to yourself. He’ll get suspicious soon, though, so you start running down the street behind the diner, looping around so as not to pass the main street where he might see you on your way back to the ship. It makes your journey a lot longer. Your breath threatens to run out more quickly than it normally would, but you press on, slowing down only a little for the sake of your stamina.

After about fifteen minutes, you make it out past the edge of the town and let yourself walk for a while, turning in the direction of the TIE. Your heart rate slows down from running. The grass swishes under your feet as you walk, and you remind yourself to keep moving quickly even if you’re not running at the moment. You lose sight of the town behind a hill, and just as you start to walk around another, a chill runs over your spine.

Cal’s Force signature is not easy to feel, but you still recognise it.

The sound of his lightsaber igniting cuts through the quiet. You stiffen and pull your own weapon out of where it’s tucked away, but you don’t turn it on yet. “Can’t you leave me alone?” You ask half-heartedly, back to him as if he’s not real unless you can see him.

“You know I’m not going to,” he responds.

Reluctantly, you turn to face him. “I’ll die before I let you make me into one of you.”

“You’ll survive.”

You ignite your lightsaber and hold it up in front of you, ready for him to attack. But he just stands there, as if he wants you to strike first, and you realise that that’s exactly what he wants - for you to let in the aggression and anger he can use against you. You’re at a stalemate. So instead of engaging him in anything more, you turn and run.

Clouds draw over the sky as your feet pound against the ground. You can feel him close behind you, and fear makes you run faster, in spite of the pain in your tired body and lungs. His lightsaber hums in the air, too close to your back for comfort. He’s fast, faster than you are. When your feet falter, moving too quickly to keep you from falling, it’s almost expected. Still, you roll back up and stumble into a run again.

He catches you with an arm around your waist, knocking the breath out of you and throwing you to the ground. You hold onto your lightsaber and keep it up above your face - it’s a poor defence at this point, but it’s the only one you’ve got. Your fingers are locked tight around the hilt.

“You’re only hurting yourself,” Cal says, standing over you with light catching in his hair.

You don’t answer him, too busy working air back into your lungs with wheezing breaths.

He raises an eyebrow. “You really gonna try and fight me from there?”

“If I have to,” you respond at length.

“You don’t have to. You could just give up and come back with me.”

“You know I’m not going to.” You turn his own words back on him.

“I know.” He moves the tip of his lightsaber down, closer to you, and you bat it away. In the same moment, you scuttle back and struggle to your feet, weapon in front of you.

You circle around each other, neither willing to strike first until, at last, you dart forward to slash at his guard. He laughs and parries your blows easily. Frustrated, you strike again. He blocks you and strikes back - you scramble to deflect his near-hit. The back-and-forth speeds up, blades crashing together faster and faster as you feel increasingly out of control of the fight. Your blood is hot in your veins. The Force rises up inside you, and this time you don’t push it back down. You let it fuel you, casting intense clarity over your pain and anger. Your lightsaber’s cracked crystal sends strands of red along your blade, and you find that you don’t have the time now to care or to calm down. Your emotion is lending strength to your body and power to your attacks. You lunge forward, hatred tightening around your ribs - and then you meet Cal’s eyes.

His pupils bleed golden-yellow into the green, framed by dark circles. There’s an almost gleeful surety in his eyes as you run at him. He’s looking back at you, and all of a sudden you know he’s not just seeing your face. He’s seeing Dark creep into you.

You lose momentum. Your guard falls, and Cal trips you with a lazily outstretched foot. Crashing to the ground, you hit your forehead. He has a foot on your back, holding you down. You try to push yourself up, but you find your movements held back by his grip on the Force. His lightsaber hums loudly in your ears, warmth stinging the back of your neck with how close it is. You shout, flooded with warring emotions, as he leans over you to take your lightsaber back from you. Movement starts to come back to you, and you start to push against his hold on you, but you don’t make it.

He turns both of your lightsabers off, and you look up at him just in time to see him wave a hand over your face. You lose consciousness, and your head falls back to the ground.


	10. All In Vain

You wake up, startled, to the feeling of a heavy impact shaking you. Your eyes open and blink blurriness out of your vision. Where are you? Looking around you, you figure it out without much effort. You’re on Cal’s ship again, just like last time you fought; one wrist is cuffed to the wall, meaning that you can stand up but not move around. His lightsaber is on his hip, but yours is nowhere to be seen. He’s pressing buttons frantically on the dashboard. As you push yourself up to your feet, you see him pushing a hand through his hair, distracted, as his brow furrows. The ship shakes again, and, looking out the windshield, you realise you’re moving sideways and not forward.

“What’s going on?” you ask, voice raspy.

He presses more buttons. “Uhh -” You can hear that he’s biting his tongue. “Kinda busy right now, got a situation.”

“What do you mean, a situation?”

“Tractor beam,” he half-mutters. You blink.

“Tractor beam?” That’s - what? “You mean you’re being captured by somebody else?”

He nods, still impotently messing with the dashboard. “Presumably. And, y’know, really it’s looking like more of a ‘ _ we’ _ situation at this point.”

Who’s willing to pull in an Imperial Inquisitor, and why? Then you remember that he’s undercover. Is it even clear that he is an Inquisitor? Or could this be something that’ll work out in your benefit? You pull at the cuff, but it doesn’t budge. “What makes you think I want to be in a ‘we situation’ with you?”

“Well, most likely my exceptional good looks.”

“Right, that’s why I’m cuffed to the kriffing wall.”

“Really do love the banter here, Jedi, but I’m trying to focus.”

“I’m not a Jedi!” And you are trying your best not to let him make you a Sith.

As you get closer to whatever’s drawing you in, something starts to beat against the edges of your mind. It’s emotion, you realise - not yours, but coming from the ship you’ve been caught by. Your breath falters. Pain is radiating from the bigger ship. You don’t know who’s putting it out, or why, but dread seeps into you. This is not good.

“Do you feel that?” You’re not sure you trust your own feelings right now.

He stops moving. “Yeah, I feel it.”

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know.”

Great, so even he doesn’t know what kind of bad thing is going on? “Uncuff me,” you demand.

He looks at you for the first time since you woke up. “No,” he says, making a face.

“Whatever that is could be dangerous! I don’t want to die just because you attached me to your stupid ship!”

He leans to look out the windshield and then back over his shoulder at you. “C’mon,” he boasts. “I’m the Eleventh Brother. This is no big deal.”

He’s probably right. Which is not good for you, not that the bigger ship feels too promising either. You start tugging at the cuff around your wrist again.

At last, there’s another heavy bump, and you can tell that you’ve landed. Cal tosses his lightsaber hilt from hand to hand a few times and, as the door opens without his telling it to, ignites one red blade. Where’s your lightsaber? If you knew, you’d call it to you, but you’re not comfortable enough using the Force without seeing it - especially after earlier.

You hear Cal starting to call out who he is from the doorway just in sight around the corner. Before he can finish, he’s interrupted by blaster fire raining down on him; his blade crashes against the bolts far louder than he can talk. They’re shooting fast. He ignites the other side of his saber, spinning it until the blades blur together.

You notice something strange. His grip on the lightsaber seems to be failing as time wears on: he’s slowing down and frowning at the saber as his defences seem to get more and more erratic. From fighting him yourself, you know something’s wrong. And firing on him like that despite the colour of his lightsaber? Whoever this is, they’re not with the Empire. And they’re certainly not good, you can feel that much. Your wrist starts to burn and chafe against the cuff. Where the kriff is your lightsaber?

You’re watching Cal when, without warning, his lightsaber shoots out of his hand. Your eyes widen. How is that possible? He’s not fighting a Force user, is he? Wouldn’t you feel it? It doesn’t make sense that his weapon is just - gone. You’re afraid, even though you’re enemy’s just been disarmed. Your heart seizes up, rebellious to your higher reason, when he cries out and throws himself back from the doorway, clutching at his left temple. He’s been grazed, you realise. It shouldn’t be too serious, but his eyes are wide and somehow distant.

After a second, he stands up again and rummages around the compartments in the dashboard. You see a glint of metal and realise it’s your lightsaber. It was right there all along? You could hit yourself. Hang on, he’s not thinking of going back -

He turns your weapon on.

“No no no, absolutely not!” you shout at him. “You’re not using that!”

“Shut up,” he snaps at you, one hand pressing gingerly against the graze as blaster fire keeps falling on the ship.

“You just lost yours, are you insane?”

“I’m trying to focus here, Y/N!”

“You’re going to get us both killed, and I don’t want to die as an  _ ‘us’ _ with you!”

“Hey, I’m in charge here, not you - so shut up!” He steps back into the doorway with your saber, deflecting the shots again. This time, your weapon flies from his hand almost immediately. The blaster fire stops.

Why did it stop?

Cal’s hands are outstretched, pulling at the extinguished hilt with the Force. But it’s not working. It’s hanging still in midair, no matter how hard he calls it. You’re still, feeling unable to do anything but watch as armoured soldiers - at least, they look like soldiers - approach.

He doesn’t move a muscle. You can see a bead of sweat roll down his face. Your lightsaber is the only thing either of you have a chance with, and if he can’t get it back…

A soldier pulls off one of Cal’s gloves. You don’t understand at first, and then you remember: his psychometry. The soldier presses something into his open hand. It’s something metal, scuffed and dark. Instantly, Cal stiffens. His legs buckle; his body is trying to curl up in pain as his face contorts into a silent scream. The next second, the metal is pulled away, and before he can struggle to his feet his arms are wrestled together in front of him and he’s locked into thick cuffs.

He collapses, twitching on the floor.

The soldiers turn to you, and then you remember your own cuff and the danger you’re in. You pull at your restraint harder, but it’s no use. One of them pulls out an energy-bladed knife and cuts it off you, and you don’t have time to try and run before you’re being put into the strange, thick cuffs too.

You realise what they are once they’ve clicked into place. Your body goes limp, head spinning. They’re Force suppressors - hard to come by, and dangerous. A Force user is connected to the Force on a genetic level; it’s part of you, like any other part. These devices don’t remove in entirely, but in a way it’s worse. That part tries to operate, but it’s left constantly banging against the suppressors. There’s a hollow pain in your mind. You’re not meant to operate this way, and it’s making you weak and sedated.

You’re vaguely aware of being pulled to your feet and moved out into another metal bay. You can’t tell how much time is passing by as you’re hauled down seemingly endless halls. Finally, the soldiers carrying you stop in front of a crude, barred cell. They close a metal collar around your neck and throw you inside. You’re too weak to catch yourself, especially restrained, but you catch sight of them doing the same thing to Cal and throwing him into the same cell as you. Your blood pounds in your skull. Then, all of a sudden, the pain stops. Your head clears, and you look at the soldiers, confused, to see one of them holding some kind of remote control. The Force is still shut off from you, but now you’re more alert. You just feel empty. They walk away and leave you.

You look over at Cal. He’s pushing himself up from the ground, seemingly in pain. It must be from the metal they made him touch.

“What is this place?” you ask him quietly, once he’s upright, as if he knows.

He shakes his head. “It’s bad. It’s - they’re doing horrible things.” He’s dead serious for the first time.

“Horrible by whose standards?” you can’t help but ask.

Cal looks at you, and his eyes look frighteningly human. “Just horrible.”

You take a deep, shaky breath. Then you notice something glowing on his collar. “Hold still,” you tell him, shifting toward him across the floor.

He flinches away at first, but you get a closer look at his collar. It’s a small display screen embedded in the dark metal. It displays vital signs and - most disturbingly - midichlorian activity levels.

“Does mine have midichlorians on it too?” You’re afraid of the answer. He runs his gloved hand over your collar as he looks at the small readout.

“Yeah,” he says.

Your faces are very close. “I think they picked us on purpose.” You look around you, dreading what you’re about to say. “I think this has something to do with the Force.”

Movement in the hall outside your cell catches your eye. Two soldiers pass. They’re dragging a body between them, limp and heavy. He’s a Twi’lek male; he’s bruised and bloodied and his headtails are drooping lifelessly toward the ground. You catch sight of the collar still around his neck. The screen is dark.

The ship is silent around you once the marching feet fade into the distance. You can’t feel anything but the cold and your own heartbeat, and sickening dread fills every inch of you until you finally lose consciousness.


	11. Neither of Us Will Be Missed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been so long! School got really stressful for a while there, but it should be better now!

You wake up to a loud clanging noise. It startles you; your eyes snap open and you reach for the lightsaber you remember in the next second is gone. Heavy footsteps enter the cell. You scramble backward, toward the corner, and see Cal already standing and facing the two guards who are approaching him. He throws a punch at one of their heads, hooks a foot around the other’s ankle; you watch anxiously. One of the guards puts some distance between them and pulls out his remote control.

Cal crumples, suppressor turned up. You hold your breath. The guards grab him, not unlike how they held the body of the Twi’lek you saw yesterday, and take him away down the hallway. You don’t breathe until they’re out of sight. Then you pull yourself up to your feet with a steadying hand on the wall.

The cell is small and dim, with three solid metal walls, and bars between you and the hallway. The floor and ceiling are made of the same dull, dark-grey metal as everything else; there’s a box-shaped locking mechanism on the outside of the barred door. Cautiously, you reach a hand through and feel for how the lock works, but your hopes are dashed as you feel a slim keyhole instead of something to put in a passcode, something you might be able to guess. You try to shake the door, but it doesn’t move. You won’t be able to squeeze through the gaps, either, not by a long shot. Looking out into the hall, you see nothing but more cells. You don’t hear any sounds that might hint at life, and from what you can see most of them seem to be empty. After a few minutes, though, your eyes pick out a figure slumped in the corner of one of the cells across from you.

“Hey!” You whisper-shout. You’re not sure if any guards are nearby. “Hey, what is this place?”

The prisoner doesn’t move. Are they dead? You’re about to turn around when their pale, reflective eyes meet yours as they turn their head to you. Their face is sunken, almost indistinguishable from the crumpled form of the rest of their body.

“How long have you been here?” you ask, brow furrowing.

The prisoner just stares, unblinking. It’s as if they don’t even recognise that you’re doing anything other than making noise. As if the only part of them that’s alive is their body. Finally, they turn their head back away and become a featureless shape in the corner again.

There is a cold pit in your chest. You return to your own corner, at the back of your cell, and try not to imagine your own face, empty and dull and unaware. You try not to think of how a person could be reduced to a living husk like that. You try not to think about what will happen if you can’t escape.

You hide your head in your arms, hugging your legs, and shut your eyes tight against everything. A long time passes.

When footsteps come down the hall again, you look up without moving. You don’t know what exactly you expected, but somehow you know it’s not what you’re seeing: Cal is back, putting one stumbling foot in front of the other with only one guard holding onto him. His shoulders are slack - he looks like a puppet with its strings cut. His hair is almost covering his eyes. The guard opens the door and shoves him inside, and when he falls to the ground without catching himself, it seems somehow unnatural. It’s not how you know him.

Cal doesn’t move for a long time. You know he’s alive - his ribs expand and contract with his breaths. His poncho and armour has been removed; his jumpsuit has been ripped in a few places, and you can see traces of blood. Part of you revels in his obvious pain, in seeing him so weak. Part of you… doesn’t.

After enough time that the raspy sound of his breathing grates at your ears, you move closer to him. “Kestis.” You poke his shoulder. His face turns in toward the floor as if he would like to bury it there. “Cal, c’mon.”

He doesn’t move, so you roll him onto his back, and if his breath hitches in pain, it’s no more than he deserves. His face is bruised around one eye, his jaw, and his temples, where there are raw red marks. He has a split lip. The skin around his collar looks slightly red and irritated.

You’re not sure you want to know what so thoroughly beat the ass of an Inquisitor.

“Cal,” you say again. He opens his eyes reluctantly. You frown at him. “You look like shit.”

He opens his mouth to speak, coughs, and winces. His voice is raspy. “In a handsome way?”

You don’t answer that. He rolls laboriously up to sitting and leans against the wall.

“What happened?” you ask.

His eyes close. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I mean -” He coughs. “I don’t know what they’re doing. They took some blood, put a thing on my head, made me move stuff. I don’t know why.”

“A thing on your head?”

“I don’t know,” he says, frustrated.

You look at him for a long moment. “...Are you okay?”

He meets your eyes and doesn’t say anything.

Eventually, you move back to your corner. It’s bitingly cold, and your mind is racing too fast to let you rest. You want this all to be a nightmare, but the hard floor and the cold make it clear that it’s all too real.


End file.
